60 years later, desegregation of schools not done

Published 12:02 am, Thursday, May 15, 2014

At a Supreme Court education rally, Aquila Griffin (right) of Chicago says, "Many blame the schools for failing, or teachers, but they never blame the bad policies put in place in schools."

At a Supreme Court education rally, Aquila Griffin (right) of Chicago says, "Many blame the schools for failing, or teachers, but they never blame the bad policies put in place in schools."

Photo: Associated Press

60 years later, desegregation of schools not done

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Washington --

Progress toward integrating America's schools since the landmark Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education decision 60 years ago is being chipped away, and it's no longer just a black-and-white issue.

Latinos, the largest minority group in the public schools, are less likely to have white classmates than other students are. In New York, California and Texas, more than half of all Latino students go to schools that are 90 percent minority.

For black students, the South now is the least segregated section of America. Outside of Texas, no Southern state is in the top five in terms of most segregated for black students. But more than half of black students in New York, Illinois, Maryland and Michigan attend schools where 90 percent or more are minority.

Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA and author of "Brown at 60" about the Supreme Court decision, says the changes are troubling, with many minority students receiving poorer educations than white and Asian students who tend to be in middle-class schools.

Educational policy since the 1980s has largely ignored race, he says, with an emphasis instead on accountability measures that assume equal opportunity can be achieved in separate schools.

When people ask if there is any great advantage to sitting next to a white person, Orfield said, his answer is no. "But there is a huge advantage to being in a middle-class school where most of the kids are going to go to college and almost everybody is going to graduate and you've got really good teachers who know how to get you ready for the next education step and you've got a class of other students you can learn from."

Although segregation is more prevalent in central cities of the largest metropolitan areas, it's also in the suburbs. "Neighborhood schools when we go back to them, as we have, produce middle-class schools for whites and Asians and segregated high-poverty schools for blacks and Latinos," he said.

For students like Diamond McCullough, 17, a senior at Walter H. Dyett High School on Chicago's South Side, the disparities are real. Her school is made up almost entirely of African American students. She said her school doesn't offer physical education classes or art, and Advanced Placement classes are only available online.

"Our school is named after a famous musician, Walter H. Dyett, and we don't even have band class no more. We don't have a music chorus class. We barely have the basic classes we need," McCullough said.

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